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40 year old Hugh Jackman needed to bulk up and get super-ripped to play the role of superhero mutant Wolverine. Find out what he did and learn how you can do the same.
Jackman surely owes a lot to his personal trainer, Mike Ryan, who has been helping him train since they met at a small gym in Jackman’s native Australia. ‘I call him my masterpiece,’ says Ryan. ‘He just keeps getting better and better over the years. We’ve got a bet to see if we can both get to 50 and still have a six-pack.’
To work around his filming schedule, he and Ryan are usually in the gym at the crack of dawn. ‘Research suggests that people who train in the afternoons consistently do workouts of far less intensity than those who do train in the morning. When Hugh has a 6am filming start, that means we’ll be in the gym by 4am’, says Ryan.
Jackman usually starts his workouts with a cardio warmup, which varies between running and swimming. This helps warm up and stretch his muscles to prevent injury. He also finishes with another 15 minutes of cardio work.
The main workout is 60 to 90 minutes, and is based around big compound weight-lifts and traditional resistance exercises, like bench-presses, squats and deadlifts. These work to increase overall muscle bulk. To emphasize particular muscles, each day’s session is split between muscle groups, with isolation exercise sets like flyes paired with compound sets, like squats. The compound exercise of the pair keeps every muscle working, while the isolation exercise squeezes a particular muscle to failure. ‘I believe in controlled overload,’ Ryan says. ‘To push the muscles to failure by the last set, we’ll superset compound moves with isolation ones – for example, go from a dumb-bell bench press straight into a flye. By the last set you need a spotter to help you squeeze out those last couple of reps., says Ryan.
While the fundamental training principles are based on the core body-building moves, the same workout can be done ten different ways by making small changes, like changing the angle of the bench; the weight, the tempo; or the rest time.
One look at Jackman’s physique proves that these training methods work, so give his plan a try. We can’t guarantee making you the next x-man, but it will get you ripped and ready for action.
Summary:
- Warm up first with 15 minutes of cardio.
- Do pairs of the exercises as supersets, performing one set of the first exercise, then moving immediately on to a set of the second exercise.
- Take enough time to rest between supersets.
- Choose a weight that you can manage with perfect technique for the whole set, but which leads to muscular failure by the end of the final set.
- Take one second to lift the weight, pause for another second, then take two to three seconds to lower it down.
- Train in the morning where possible.
- Work on “progressive overload” – always keep increasing the weight.
- Keep a training diary to record your progress.
- Focus on muscle activation rather than simply aiming to finish the set.
- Work with a trainer to help your motivation.
- Get plenty of sleep – 7 to 7.5 hours a night.
